JAPAN!!

JAPAN!!!!!

Before I tell you all what I did in Japan a few things: We’ve been rerouted straight to Hong Kong because of the typhoon—so Chrys if you sent me a letter to Qingdao (Ching-dow) then I probably won’t get it. Any info about this typhoon would be extremely interesting b/c it’s very hard to get info here on the ship. It is making the ship go UP and DOWN and ALL AROUND! And the internet hasn’t been working for the past few days. Mom, I sent you the kimono and the handkerchiefs in the mail umm…a few days ago, I guess…my days are kind of bleeding together. Please post some current events going on for me…I heard there was a shooting at a school in Canada. And I don’t know just any current events would be fascinating to me right now. Next is a segment I’m going to call, “Rumor Has It.” Oh and Chrys, are your pics of the wedding available online anywhere?
Rumor Has it—that a whole handful of students are in really big trouble for drunkenness and drugs. So, you see ladies and gentlemen, it does happen. Next is that we will be known as the “Ship that got Rerouted.” Already we’ve been moved to Hong Kong. And the ship is abuzz with talk that we may not make it to Egypt or Turkey because of terrorism. I’m all for it as long as we make it to the Mediterranean Sea. Why, you may ask. Because than we will be moved to Greece or Italy or EUROPE people. I have nothing against Africa (and in fact love the idea of visiting Africa), but if we go around Africa then we will miss Croatia and Spain as well. And the latter half of our itinerary would be down the drain! NOT COOL!! There have been a few trips in Egypt cancelled already; the ones to the Mosques and Islamic communities. Or anything that had to deal with Islam. Go figure.
Now as for Japan…I LOVED IT!! Definitely want to go back there one day and take it in more. The people are so nice and beautiful. But for a country where English is mandatory in the schools, no one really knows it! But that’s okay; it’s all about the experience, right?
So, I was in a group of five, originally. The people I was with were Becca, Wendy, Nate, and Lucy. I met Becca when she helped me with the skydiving thing (good times). We left after lunch and had to wait about 30 minutes for Wendy to get a new student ID card with about 30 other students whose cards weren’t working. Then we took a tram to the Sonnyoma (sort of) station which let out right near a mall. How wonderful. We waited in yet another line so we could get money out of the ATM with our credit cards. Only to find out that in order to get cash off of your credit card, you need a pin. I had wondered about that, but some one told me (MOM) not to worry about it. So after the rest of us got money off of our debit cards, we went to a bank to try to get money for Wendy, who didn’t bring her debit card with her because she didn’t think she would need it. I don’t blame her, I almost didn’t bring mine because it didn’t seem like I would be able to use it anywhere. After that was unsuccessful we decided to loan her money until she could pay us back.
Since it was so late by now we decided to go to Kyoto first on our rail pass (which was worth every cent) since it was closer than Tokyo. We got to Kyoto in about an hour and walked around for a place to live for the night. This was our first great find. It looked a little small on the outside, but it was long. They only had one room left for the five of us and it was traditional style--meaning slide opening doors and straw matt floor with futons. At 30 bucks a person (3000 yen) we took it. They even had a little table with cushions around it where we had a midnight snack later on. Wendy used her credit card on the room so we could all give her cash. And they served us iced tea and iced coffee with this orange jello type thing that was really good. Oh, and you took your shoes off upon entering and wore slippers. And you wore a different set of slippers into the bathroom. Apparently, wearing the bathroom slippers anywhere but the bathroom is a big taboo. After setting our stuff down in the room, we went off in search of food.
We found this cute restaurant with traditional and western style seating. If we had been able to understand her, we probably would have gone for the traditional style seating, but we were low on experience at this point. Dinner was very good. I had avian flu free chicken and rice. I tried the meso soup, but it didn’t look like any sort of meso soup I had ever tried before. Lucy and Becca had a sushi platter of some kind that they said was good and I don’t even know what Wendy and Nate had. Afterward, we walked around in search of Pachinko. I’m not even going to try to describe pachinko to you, but it’s like pinball sort of. We tried to find one that didn’t have a whole bunch of middle aged men smoking, but that seemed to be that standard. One of the employees had a card that told the directions in several different languages, but he still had to help us for about 30 minutes to show us what was going on. He was REALLY nice. So about and hour and 1000 yen later (10 bucks) we were off in search of food again.
We wanted to find some sort of sweet something to have around our table in our room. We went to a seven eleven and found a whole bunch of stuff and went back to our room as quietly as possible and took pictures of us eating everything. Then to bed!
The next day we got up early and went straight to Nara. Nara was amazing. We kept getting side tracked down these streets with all of these bakeries and shops and I found an old kimono for my mom to cut up and make into a quilt down one of those streets. In Nara we visited the Todai-ji (Great Eastern Temple) which has a huge bronze statue of the Buddha and a Deer Park. If you ever visit the deer park, don’t feed the RABID, CRAZY deer unless you want to be kicked, bitten, and nipped at. We also found a cute restaurant in Nara where we had our own little room (traditional style) where no one could see us stabbing our food with our chopsticks.
As for Tokyo. I wouldn’t recommend sleeping in the area that we were in, which I cannot remember the name of. It was great for night life and karaoke and all that jazz, but all of the hotels in this area were love hotels. And they weren’t nice ones either. So, after enduring about 5 minutes in the love hotel, I got Wendy to go with me in a taxi to another hotel. I just handed our driver my travel book and he took us to another hotel. It was interesting to see Tokyo change from seedy to nice through the taxi windows though. We made it to the hotel at about 2AM and I finally got to call home. See, dad I do check in! And don’t let them give my babies any shots either. Anyway, we tried meeting back up with them the next day, but it didn’t work, so Wendy and I went back to Kobe and spent the night around that area and slept on the ship.
The next day, Wendy and I went to Hiroshima, which was enjoyable, but depressing, I guess. It’s like going to the Holocaust Museum in DC. It’s stuff that you have to see with your own eyes so you can acknowledge it as a truth in our world’s past, but it’s not the type of thing you like to dwell on. I was already feeling sick from reading a newspaper (my first English one in weeks) on the train so pictures of melted people didn’t really help. All over were testimonies about children who had been sent to demolition work to keep fire from burning down the whole city and there they were exposed to immense levels of radiation that severely burned them and killed the majority of them. What I found most interesting is that in books and stuff all you see is pictures of the destruction and fire. I knew that the bomb was a long time ago, but the place was alive with restaurants and parks, and museums and businesses.
Our last day in Kobe was pretty uneventful for me. I was feeling sick and only spent an hour outside the ship and then called it quits. I came to my room and tried to relax and watch the movies they were playing on our little TVs. After dinner I knocked myself out with Tylenol PM and missed the 9PM meeting about skipping Qingdao. The one meeting I miss and they finally announce something worth hearing.
And to add on to that…I was still feeling sick up until today. So skipping Qingdao worked out okay for me b/c it would not have been fun!
This may seem long, but there is a lot I didn’t tell you. Like the woman in Hiroshima who prayed for Wendy and I and said that our “blood will be purified”—she had it written on a little card in multiple languages. And about how everybody really does bow to each other even groups of friends. Oh! And about the drunk guys in Kobe after Hiroshima who (we think) tried to get us to buy them beer. The last thing they needed was more beer. Or how I really don’t like sake either, BLEH! Or about the thousands of vending machines selling cigarettes and beer and other stuff that we don’t know what it was! But this is long enough. And you know most of what I did in Japan! And that I had fun! And hopefully I’ll have as much fun in the rest of the countries we visit!

LOVE U ALL FOREVER!

DD